In 2006, just six months before he passed away, author Kurt Vonnegut responded to a letter from a group of Xavier High School students in New York City. I’m sure you’ve read about this – the goodness of the message has gone viral more than once in the intervening years, most recently thanks to actor, Sir Ian McKellen who read the letter at a “Letters Live” event in London. The video is short and worth a watch. I promise.
Here’s the Vonnegut quote from that letter. Inspirational and shiver-worthy, to make haste and get moving. Reminding me that I’ve got stories inside, anxious to be free of me, exist in the world, whether read by others or not:
“Practice any art . . . no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
If that wasn’t inspiration enough, I had the joyous pleasure over the past two weeks of connecting with dear colleagues from my past. It’s wondrous when people remain in touch across four decades plus. It’s the payoff and the privilege of allowing myself to be known, vulnerable and loved despite the expanse of geography and time which separates kindred ones.
I’m lucky and I know it. Big-hearted brilliant friends from my past still cheer me on, ask what’s next, applaud my courage and tenacity. I won’t lie; it’s a feel good. As much as I like to deny it, external support and acknowledgement matters. It does. It always will, in my quest to be seen and heard. And yet I’ve learned to temper and tap down that need.
Vonnegut’s advice helps. It goes straight to the heart of my compulsion. Feedback is lovely and treasured, but even without an audience or readers, I suspect I’d feel the same.
I am the most “me” that I can possibly be when I allow what’s inside to flow through my fingers.
Yes, yes. Publishing books and receiving praise is a feel-good and I’m grateful, but even without the regard from others, I’d be kicking the can…my expressive writing can…down the road, every day in one way or another. It’s a liberation, a renewal.
Discoveries await when I relax and release. But I’m not totally deluded. 😉 Often, what percolates up and out is schlock; unworthy, cringey even, but I’m learning to lament less, and I think Vonnegut summed up the why.
It’s the doing. The becoming.
Or, as I told a dear one recently who asked what I was up to, writing-wise, I write because it’s the unfolding of me. Layers of undiscovered territory, waiting to be tapped, released.
For several months I toyed with an idea, based on delicious feedback from readers of “Surviving Sue”. I’ve held back…haven’t shared…because the glimmers…the infancy of creative expression needed time to oxygenate, breathe. Worthy? Readable? Engaging enough to hold my interest? Those are the questions I’m still grappling with.
My mother’s sisters – my aunts – were extraordinarily intuitive women. My mom, Sue, as well. Knowing looks, insightful nods, communicating without words. Handy, for sure, when they wanted to exchange silent, nasty comments about others who were nearby. A fantastic skill with a shadow side for Sue – making secret-keeping arduous and difficult. How do you cloak your innermost thoughts when others can read them so adeptly?
And so…I started a novel. A fictionalized story inspired by mystical threads in my mother’s family. Oh…what I’ve discovered. The story has, as all stories should – a distinct beginning, middle and end and I’m squarely in the middle right now. Plowing through at 55,000 words, remembering Vonnegut’s missive to students. I’m finding out what’s inside ME and the writing – testing myself in this way – no matter what happens with the finished product? My soul is growing.
Vicki 😊
P.S. Check out this link for more “Peek Inside” content about “Surviving Sue”.
Victoria Ponders 
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